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The Hermes sustainability programme "WE DO!"

It’s what you do that matters. To emphasise the importance of protecting the environment, Hermes made it a permanent goal of the company very early: back in 1986, the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. We were already convinced back then that doing business sustainability is the only way to ensure success over the long term. Even though the nature of Hermes’ work is such that it fulfils orders placed by others, it has set itself the goal of not doing so at a cost to mankind and the environment.

Our sincerity and dedication to this position is proven by our 19 years of ISO 14001 certification, the international environmental standard that mandates continual improvement. Whether it is the principle that Hermes ParcelShops should be within walking distance, our solar-powered facilities or our increasingly electric vehicle fleet, Hermes' clearly defined goal is to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 50% by 2020, using 2006 as a base.

Besides cutting carbon emissions, we are also looking generally at avoiding environmental pollution and a declared goal of Hermes is to offer zero-emission deliveries to the inner-city areas of Germany’s 80 largest cities by 2025.

Thus, in 2010 a comprehensive, far-reaching corporate initiative was launched under the name “Hermes - WE DO!”. The climate change and environmental programme, unique in the industry, comprehensively bundles the efficient use of resources across all of the various company divisions. All areas of the company are involved and it takes both upstream and downstream steps in the logistics chain into account. Its core element here is to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 50% by 2020. Some of the key drivers of carbon-savings include modernising the fleet of vehicles and the logistics infrastructure, and building more energy-efficient sites.

Furthermore, Hermes provides regular information to its clients about the emissions that been generated by shipping through Hermes in the form of a free CO2 report. Hermes then uses this information as both an invitation and as leverage to work together with clients to permanently reduce these emissions.

You can find some current examples concerning Hermes’ sites, electric vehicles or cargo bikes in the following sections of our Sustainability Report:

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